Ripper

I have a friend whose early-2000s acting teacher claimed to know Christopher Walken. I don’t know how far back they went, but the story goes that, sometime in the mid ’90s, this guy rang up his old pal Chris to ask how he was doing.

Walken: “Ah, man, it’s great! They’re paying me to be weird!”

You can even hear it in his voice, can’t you? I’ll never know if this third-hand story is true, but I like to believe it is, so we’ll go with that. I clearly remember lots of chatter around Walken’s SNL appearances, and anecdotes like Jay Mohr’s tail story, with people earnestly debating if he was that damned unhinged in real life. The above story suggests he knew exactly what he was doing, hamming it all the way up to give the people what they wanted. And if what you want is some vintage Chris Walken ham, Ripper will enthusiastically deliver.

But there’s more here than just recognizable actors throwing occasional corny expressions. Coming out in 1996, Ripper released at the peak of FMV adventure gaming. Merging games with Hollywood actors hadn’t quite lit the world on fire, but it hadn’t flamed out either. The talent behind Take 2 Interactive truly believed this style had a place in gaming’s future and were willing to spend the money to prove it. Ripper takes itself totally seriously, weaving a captivating tale with some skillful mood-setting. It certainly stumbles along the way – and pretty much collapses by the end – but if you’re after a worthy adventure, there’s honest things to like here.

You’re cast as reporter Jake Quinlan (Scott Cohen). It’s 2040 and a brutal serial killer is stalking seemingly-unrelated New Yorkers. Victims are found dissected in ways similar to Jack the Ripper, leading to the media calling him… well, it’s the title, innit? Jake’s been receiving and publishing exclusive messages from the murderer, giving him some notoriety and an audience, but also endless suspicion from lead detective Vince Magnotta (Walken). It’s also NYC of the future, so there are virtual newspapers, ’90s-era cyberspace, brain-interface technology, and similar speculative cheese.

Leaving the scene of the Ripper’s third murder, Jake gets a call from his assistant Catherine (Tahnee Welch). She’s got a hot tip but goes missing, only to turn up at her apartment and collapse in Jake’s arms. The Ripper got her! But what exactly did he do? And how is she the first victim to escape? You soon find she’s been investigating the Ripper without you, so the rest of the game has you piecing together what she’s uncovered. Using these clues to jog her memory might also help the mind docs wake her from her coma, and importantly, clear up a distorted mental picture of the Ripper’s true face. A real who’s-who of a cast fills out the roles, including Karen Allen, Paul Giamatti, David Patrick Kelly, John Rhys-Davies, Ossie Davis, Jimmy Walker, and Burgess Meredith in his final screen role.

If I had to label Ripper with one word, that would be “adult.” Not in a porno sense, but in a maturity of how it handles its themes and storytelling. Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh comes to mind as a title that feels similar. Both are dark and moody, with surprising moments of strong writing. As an example from early in Ripper, you ask the medical examiner if he’s reviewing the latest victim. “Nah,” he puffs through a cigarette. “This one was married to her Ripper.” Like any good noir story, these murders aren’t disrupting some peaceful utopia – they just highlight a broken society where everyone’s got their heads down, trying to get by.

Scott Cohen as Jake does a ton of heavy lifting here, selling both the world and the stakes. His nu-metal hairdo and oversized leather coat still work in the “New New York” context, while his general “good guy who just wants the truth” demeanor makes him come off like Columbo. He’s got no actual authority, so he can’t demand answers, but his rapport with characters he’s interrogating feels authentic and believable. And when he turns up the heat, like suggesting he’ll publish an unfavorable story in the Virtual Herald, he makes it feel like an actual threat. You feel a connection with him. Often he was asking the exact questions I wanted answered, in the tone I wanted them asked in. When he wasn’t, the dialogue choices still felt smart and relevant.

The investigation also unfolds logically. It’s pretty linear, of course, but it’s paced well and lets you follow the leads you want to follow. Puzzles block your way instead of any “you can’t go there right now ’cause there’s an accident on the bridge” kind of artificial excuses. Those puzzles are dressed-up brainteasers rather any wacky Adventure Game Logic solutions. Sure, there’s some wildly elaborate door locks or passwords, but nothing like needing a custard pie to defeat a yeti. Only catch is that there is an expected path, so you can get lost if you deviate from it. There were a few times I had to wander around and have (seemingly useless) conversations to trigger the next part of the story.

I found that story to be a real page-turner that kept me thinking, guessing, and curious. Exploring this world’s differences (police bounties, mind interfaces, etc) was always a treat. It also does a great job of balancing suspicion between four suspects. One’s pretty blatantly set up to be “the guy,” but as you investigate, the others have secrets and odd behaviors that look just as damning. At the start of Act II, Jake monologues how he feels like he’s in “a bad mystery novel where everyone did it.” Same, brother.

Cracks start to form with all the ’90s cyber talk. I think you’ve got to be a fan of this era, because without that grounding, it’s corny as hell and way off the mark. Gibson-esque ideas get thrown about, some of which stuck (pocket computers, AI, avatars), others which didn’t (decking, cyber-wells, data angels). A computer at Jake’s news desk lets him jump into 3D cyberspace and visit various servers – a lot of the investigation revolves around trying to find their unique passwords. The look of these worlds is heavily influenced by Softimage-era 3D art, like The Mind’s Eye or The Lawnmower Man. A few locations even try to directly copy the golden watercolor effect from that film.

Cyberspace is also home to the game’s five or so action sequences – as unwelcome an annoyance here as in any adventure game. These are on-rails shooting galleries through pre-rendered 3D worlds. You’ll have to impress someone with a high score, zap neurons before they overwhelm you, or battle security programs that look like robots or giant rats. Shoot the weak points with unlimited ammo, while using the right mouse button to block with recharging shields. Failure just reloads from the start to try again. They even added difficulty levels, changing damage given and received. But you can’t proceed until you beat these sequences, and you can’t skip them unless you cheat.

You can’t ignore or skip any puzzles either. For every clue you piece together from paper scraps or dialogue, there are puzzles asking you to manipulate sliding blocks (ugh!), reassemble broken pieces, win derivatives of Reversi, and so on. One of the best has you record someone and manually slice up the audio to speak the passcode for a voice lock. It feels freeform and clever. One of the worst has you swipe a computer mag to learn how to repair a circuit board. Chips must be socketed in groups of four, with rules like not combining one chip type with another, or having to pair another chip with a specific serial number.

Other challenges rely on math or word association. An early puzzle asks you to make the connection that “@no_iaid” is sounded out “no eye aid,” as in “20/20” is part of the code. That felt like a huge stretch to me. Adjustable difficulty settings start some puzzles with pieces already in place, while others let you ask characters for suggestions. But there’s no in-game hint system and there were absolutely times I didn’t feel confident about my solutions. For others, I was so far lost that I’m glad I looked up the answers. Ripper’s not going to be an easy one, even for adventure game veterans.

Reviews often trash the performances, but I didn’t think it felt like the high school play it’s made out to be. Karen Allen seems bored, but her character is supposed to be icy and standoffish, so it works. Similarly, Burgess Meredith is around 87 during this shoot and seems to struggle, but that’s also his character, so it’s not clear if it’s great acting or borderline elder abuse. David Patrick Kelly is just the right amount of sinister and sleaze as ace hacker and suspect numero uno Joey Falconetti. John Rhys-Davis is only in one scene, but he totally steals it. Jimmy Walker is clearly just reading all of his tech-guru lines, but he’s also got a great speech about how cyberspace lets his (wheelchair-bound) character walk and dance. I don’t feel like anyone here missed the assignment.

But I promised Chris Walken ham, and as the game’s most enduring star, his performance probably deserves a unique paragraph. He absolutely chews all the scenery you want him to – and more! – but also manages real menace in between sometimes-goofy line reads. His “crooked cop on the edge” tics started to grow on me and help make him feel like a believable suspect. He’s known to read cue cards for his SNL skits, which contributes to his trademark staccato line delivery. I wonder if he’s doing the same here. You could argue that not bothering to learn his lines means he’s less Brando and more just not taking this seriously, and you might be right. But my point is, don’t come exclusively to watch known actors give performances you’ll snicker at. There’s more here than that.

Though Take 2 spent money on actors, they still weren’t going to spend it on sets. Everything here is greenscreen acting and CG environments. Artists apparently were building and tweaking the sets right alongside the shoots (similar to what Phantom Menace would later do) and it shows in cinematic camera angles and matched lighting. Actors don’t look out of place. You’ll never see arms clipping through CG furniture, so it’s not hard to suspend belief. Designs are an interesting merge of art deco, film noir, and the loose metal and tangled wires of “cutting edge” cyberpunk. The biggest criticism is that, as you click around to move, the transition animations are entirely too long with no way to skip ahead.

Dialogue is recorded well and I had no issues with sync or mixing. Unlike most ’90s games, Ripper’s not afraid to say “fuck” when it needs to. Also unlike most ’90s games, it usually earns the right. Music is limited to some unremarkable looping background bits that generally stay out of the way. Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper” makes an appearance in the intro (I had to check the box – yep, still “Ripper”) and later in a fourth-wall-breaking puzzle. I don’t understand why it’s here or what prestige it was supposed to bring. I guess Walken really can’t get enough of that cowbell.

I thought the investigation was great and compelling, until you start to see where it’s leading. For me, the wheels fell off in Act III. The victims share a secret connection (of course they do), and when you discover what it is, it’s awfully contrived. Eventually finding the mystery weapon behind the “inhumanly quick and precise” cuts is guaranteed to raise an eyebrow. I still can’t explain what the Ripper’s motive is supposed to be. Overall, I felt like the final act squandered a great setup. It’s like having a fun time putting together a jigsaw puzzle, only to find the completed picture is just a big, hairy ass.

The game’s four endings also deserve blame. All suspects seem equally guilty because they are equally guilty until the third act. The game picks one of the four at random and seeds Act III with different clues. But these are very slight changes. You’ll never get a smoking gun that makes it clear when you’ve found the Ripper, and in my case, I didn’t even know why my Ripper was chosen over the other three. Without getting too spoilery, my game’s choice doesn’t even make sense in terms of timing and motive – unless I missed something, it felt like a twist ending entirely for the sake of it. Not that it matters anyway. Pick the wrong Ripper in the final standoff and the sequence just reloads until you get it right.

This randomness also makes each ending as meaningless as a post-game football interview. All endings are a 30-second voice over as Jake pecks away at his keyboard – a shot lifted from earlier in the game. There’s no conclusion on if you “killed” the killer, the consequences of it, or final chats with the suspects who turned out innocent. Motive is hand-waived away as “madness,” not worth contemplating. You don’t even know if Catherine recovers and the game doesn’t think it’s worth mentioning. It’s just off to credits, where (you know it) “Don’t Fear The Reaper” plays again.

I refuse to believe that after all the care and thought put into the rest of the story, they never bothered writing up a true ending. It’s possible Take 2 ran out of time and money (it feels similar to other games’ rushed endings), but I wonder if they came up with the idea for multiple endings mid-way through production as a gimmick for more “replay value.” I remember a lot of mid-’90s grousing over paying full price for a 4-hour game, with companies trying different, artificial ways to pad out their games in response. Maybe they figured variable endings would move copies, but hadn’t planned it out from the start.

Regardless of the reason, Ripper leaves you with a real wet fart of an ending. The journey will absolutely be the reward – though it doesn’t help that a pretty excellent investigation also gets held up by brain-bending puzzles, long transition animations, and some cyber-nonsense. You’ll also need some affinity for FMV games, believing that the performances enhance the storytelling without just feeling like you’re watching a movie and clicking occasionally to keep it going. If you want a murder mystery that handles its world maturely, Ripper is a strong choice. But be prepared that your randomly-selected ending isn’t going to satisfy.

 

The Good

Above average if you’re looking for a mature game that paces out well. You can’t say the puzzles aren’t clever. Performances are generally strong across the board, despite its reputation. Video and CG sets blend together well and professionally.

 

The Bad

Below average if a good ending is critical to you not feeling like you’ve wasted your time. Puzzles are pretty demanding. Some forced arcade sequences. Occasional inconsistencies – the intro murder doesn’t match its crime scene, where did Jake get that gun, you’re telling me we can hack brains but no one thinks to match DNA from a sample of the Ripper’s blood?

 

“Secret labs, mutilated animals… talking monkeys! You know, I’ve never cited a monkey as a source.” — Jake